Download Geography Matters Human geography And regions in global

Geography Matters
Human geography
And regions in global text
4th edition
Author: Paul L. Knox and Sallie A. Marston
Publisher: Pearson education, Inc
Chapter 1 summary
By Cynthia Hernandez
1st period AP Human Geography
February 16, 2011
Introduction






Prominent news stories 1st half of 2005
Related to geography regardless of how unrelated they seem
Stories about economic development, regional, territorial disputes, ethnic conflicts and global
warming have strong geographical elements.
Human geography- about recognizing and understanding the interdependence among places
and regions without loosing sight of the uniqueness of specific places.
Places- specific geographical settings with distinctive physical, social, and cultural attributes.
Regions- are territories that encompass many places, all or most of which share attributed of
places elsewhere.
Why Places Matter


More than half of the people can not identify or point out a specific place or region on the map.
The lack of understanding is important because geographic knowledge can take us far beyond
simply glimpsing the inherently interesting variety of peoples and places.
The influence and meaning of places






Places are dynamic, with changing properties and fluid boundaries that are the product of
interplay of a wide variety of environmental and human factors.
Places also provide settings for people’s daily lives and social relations. They exert a strong
influence, for better or worse, on peoples physical well being, opportunities, and lifestyle
choices.
Identity- is the sense that they make of themselves through their subjective feelings based on
their everyday experiences and wider social relations.
Distinction is useful in considering the importance of understanding spaces and places from the
view point of the insider.
Places are also the sites of innovation and change, or resistance and conflict.
Unique characteristics of specific places provide the preconditions for new agricultural practices.
 Such as, the development of seed agriculture
 New cultural practices
 New lifestyles/ hippie look
Interdependence of places



Interdependent, filling specialized roles in complex and ever-changing geographies.
Social and economical relations lend distinctiveness to individual place that also operate
between places.
Stretching of social and economical relations across space is what connects places and people
who live in them with other places and people.
 Example Manhattan, New York is a specialized global center of things like
corporate management and business.
 To get the supplies needed to keep it stable it does things, for example, for food it
draws on fruits and vegetables from Florida, and specialty foods from Europe.
 This interdependence means that individual places are tied into wider processes of
change.
Interdependence of geographical scale














Different aspects of human geography are understood best and analyzed best at different
spatial scales.
 Different aspects are interrelated and interdependent, these to have to be at
different scales that can relate.
Industrial revolution, for example changed not only the character of economic development, but
also the scales at which industrial and consumption were organized (local to national and
international).
In today’s world the large scale is represented by international, or world regions, large but
relatively homogenous territories with distinctive economic, cultural, and demographic
characteristics.
World regions- are large scale geographic divisions based on continental and physical
geographic settings that contain major groupings of peoples with broadly similar cultural
attributes.
States- are independent political units with territorial boundaries that are recognized by other
states
De jure- means legally recognized.
The inherent power of national governments; flows of money, goods and information that
underpins reality, national states because of this represent an important geographical scale.
Supranational organizations- are collections of individual states with a common goal that may be
economical and or political in nature and that diminish, to some extent, individual state
sovereignty in favor of the group interests of the membership.
Most people, however, the realm of experience is encompassed by the scales of human
settlements.
 This scale is constructed around the way people’s lives are organized through
their work, consumption and recreation.
It is a scale that depends on a great deal on the economic, social, and cultural attributes of local
populations.
 Scale of the community is most important.
Body – represents the scale at which differences are ultimately defined. Self- represents the
operational scale for cognition, perception, imagination, free will, and behavior.
 Both are major in the spatial scale
Certain scales represent manifestations of powerful real-world processes, and the world can be
understood through a variety of spatial scales.
Important aspects of the interdependence between geographic scales are provided by the
relationships between global and local scales.
Study of human geography shows how global trends influence local outcomes and how events in
particular localities can influence patterns and trends elsewhere.
Interdependence as a two-way process

One of the most important tenets of human geography is that places are not just distinctive
outcomes of geographical processes; they are part of the processes themselves.


Neighborhoods for example, has a mix of people and buildings, real estate development,
housing market, people buying the homes, then more are built and more people buy them. As a
result communities are made with personality, profile, social atmosphere, and a reputation.
Places are created when people respond to the opportunities and new surroundings. As people
move around they modify and adjust, at the same time accommodate both to their physical
environment and to people around them.
 This is an example of a two-way process created by people.
Interdependence in a globalizing world




With so many changes taking place now the study of geography provides an
understanding of the crucial interdependencies that underpin everyone’s lives.
Globalization is the increasing interconnectedness of different parts of the world
through common processes of economic, environmental, political, and cultural change.
Change in both the pace and the nature of globalization change, leading to a highly
interdependent world.
In almost every case, however, the outcomes of the increased geographic
interdependence associated with globalization are very much open to interdependence.
Perspective on globalization and interdependence



An important aspect of globalization is the wide spread perception that the world, through
economic and technological forces, is increasingly becoming one shared political and economical
space, with events in one region having repercussions for all others, whether near or far.
Understanding what the experts believe about globalization will help to gain a better
understanding of the complex interdependence between the global and the local.
Globalization falls into 3 categories: hyper globalists, the skeptics, and the transformationalists.
Interdependence within and between France and Vietnam

Because of the increasing interdependent world, the four people in the text all fall in the
category under poverty. The 2 people in Vietnam earn very little but just enough to feed their
small families. While the 2 people in France get by with enough money to feed themselves.
Although they make good money they still fall in the poverty category.
Hyper biologist view


The view that opens markets and free trade and investments across global markets allowing
more and more people to share in the prosperity of a growing world economy.
Hyper biologists believe that the current phase of globalization signals the beginning of the end
for the nation-state and the denationalization of economies. They also believe that the nationstate eventually will be replaced by institutes of global governance in which individuals claim
transnational allegiances that are founded upon commitment to neoliberal principles of free
trade and economic integration.
The skeptical view

Skeptics those who believe that contemporary levels of global economic integration represent
nothing particularly new and that much of the talk about globalization is exaggerated.
 Are also dismissive of the idea that the nation is in decline.
 Understand regionalization and globalization to be contradictory
Transfomationalist view

View contemporary processes of globalization are historically unprecedented as governments
and peoples across the globe confront the absence of any clear distinction between global and
local, and between domestic affairs and international.
 Make no claims about the future trajectory of globalization
 Believe globalization is leading to increasing social stratification
Key issues in a globalizing world/ environmental

Humans have altered the balance of nature in ways that have brought economic prosperity to
some areas and created environmental dilemmas and crisis in others.
 Pollution, global warming, deforestation
Health issues

Medical geographers conclude that the (HIV), which causes acquired (AID’s), spread in a
hierarchical diffusion pattern from a hearth area in central Africa in the late 1970’s.
Security issues


Capitalism (a form of economic and social organization characterized by the profit motive and
the control of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods by private
ownership).
Risk society – which means the significance of wealth distribution is being eclipsed by the
distribution of risk.
 Terrorism
Geography in a globalizing world


More universal the diffusion of material culture and lifestyles, the more valuable regional and
ethnic identities become.
Reality is that globalization is variously embraced, resisted, subverted and exploited as it makes
contact with specific cultures and settings.
Studying human geography




Physical geography deals with earth’s natural processes and their outcomes- climate or weather
Human geography deals with the spatial organization of human activities and with peoples
relationships with environment.
Regional geography combines elements of both physical and human geography.
Region used by geographers to apply to large size territories that encompass many places.
Basic tools


Remote sensing the collection of information about parts of earth’s surface by means of aerial
photography or satellite imagery designed to record data on visible, infrared, and microwaves.
Visualization or representation using charts and graphs.

(GIS), computers soft/ hard ware that spatially coded data that is designed to capture, store,
update, manipulate, and display geographically referenced information.
Spatial analysis

Study of many geographic phenomena can be approached in terms of their arrangements as
points, lines, areas, or surfaces on a map.
Location




Latitude refers to the angular distance of a point on earth’s surface, measured in degrees, min,
sec’s north or south of the equator, which is assigned a value of 0 degrees.
Longitude (meridians) run from north pole to south pole
(GPS) determines the latitude and longitude of any place.
Site physical attributes of a location.
Distance






Useful as absolute physical measure
Cognitive distance, distance people perceive to exist in a situation
Important fundamental factor in determining real-world relationships is a central theme in
geography.
Friction of distance a reflection of the time and cost of overcoming distance.
Distance-decay function describes the rate at which a particular activity or phenomenon
diminishes with increasing distance.
Utility a specific place or location refers to its usefulness to a group or person.
 Located related activities as close together as possible.
Space



Measured in absolute, relative, and cognitive terms
Topological space the connections between, or conventional measures of distance but by the
nature and degree of connectivity.
Cognitive space defined and measured in terms of people’s value, feelings, beliefs, and
perception about location, districts, and regions.
Accessibility


Is generally defined by geographers in term of relative location.
 Opportunity for contact and interaction from a given point or location
Connectivity contact and interaction are dependent on channels of communication and
transportation.
 Often a function of economic, cultural, and social factors.
Spatial interaction


Shorthand for all kinds of movement and flows involving human activity
Fundamental principles of spatial interaction can be reduced to four basic concepts:
contemplary- precondition for interdependence between places; transferability- another
precondition for interdependence between places, between modes of communication and
transportation, over time. Intervening opportunities are more important in determining the
volume and pattern of movements and flows. Size and relative importance of alterative
destinations are also important aspects. Spatial diffusion the way that things spread through
space and over time, important aspect, and spatial diffusion is just like expansion and
hierarchical diffusion.
Regional Analysis/ Regionalization





With individual places or areal units being the objects of classification. Purpose is to identify the
different regions.
Local division involves partitioning a universal set of areal units into successively larger numbers
of regions, using more specific criteria at every stage.
Formal regions- groups of areal units that have a high degree of homogeneity in terms of
particular distinguishing features. Functional regions, regions within which, while there may be
some variability in certain attributes.
Regionalism a term used to describe situations in which differ religious or ethnic groups with
distinctive identities coexist within the same state boundaries, often concentrated within a
particular region and sharing strong feelings.
Sectionalism feelings developed into an extreme devotion to regional interests and customs.
Landscapes


Comprehensive product of human action such that every landscape is complex repository of
society.
Ordinary landscape- everyday landscapes that people create in the course of time. Symbolic
landscape- represents particular values or aspirations that builders and financers of those
landscapes want to impart to a larger public, landscape has many meanings.
Sense of place


Refers to the feelings evoked among people as a result of experiences and memories they
associate with.
When you feel you belong in a place because you lived or have been in a place for a long time.
It’s different for outsiders because they don’t know the place like you do.
Developing a geographical imagination



Geographical image allows us to understand changing patterns, processes, and relationships
among people, places and regions.
Transportation and communications brought a rapid series of rearrangements to the
countryside.
With a globalized economy and global telecommunication and transportation networks, places
have become interdependent.
Recognizing the general and the unique

Distinction between the general and unique spatial change helps account for geographical
diversity and variety because it provides a way of understanding how and why one kind of
change can result in a variety of spatial outcomes.
 General effects of a particular change always involve some degree of modification as
they are played out in different environments giving rise to unique outcomes.
Making a difference: the power of geography


The study of geography is essential for understanding our complex world.
Through diversity and variety of places and the world’s people, it provides real opportunities to
contributing to local, national and global development.
Importance of a geographic education

Reports emphasize the importance of being geographically informed, understanding the
geography is the study of people, places, and environments from a spatial prospective.
Geographers at work

Geographers make many significant contributes to society, for example the study of broad
nature and fields, which make contributions to cover every aspect of human activity in every
scale from local to national.
 International affairs- ability to analyze public affairs
 Location of public- special techniques for analyzing a subject.
 Marketing and location of industry- used to analyze the supply and demand.
 Geography and the law helping to resolve complex social and environmental issues.
 Disease ecology analyzing social and environmental issues of human disease.
 Urban and regional planning creative approach towards society and local
communities.
 Economic development ability to understand interdependence of places and
analyzing economic, environment, political attributes of specific regions.
 Homeland security- knowledge and understanding of geography and others, together
with an appreciation of the interdependent relationships among local, regional, and
global systems.
 These are examples of how geography is critical in today’s world.
Great Work-your team should be proud